Ike Perlmutter, the billionaire businessman and former Marvel vice chair, has reportedly sold his entire stake in Disney.
In a small, business-y way, it’s the end of an era: Isaac ‘Ike’ Perlmutter, the billionaire businessman who’s been involved in Marvel (and later Disney) since the early 1990s, has reportedly sold off his entire stake of Disney shares.
The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal (via Deadline), with the story being that Perlmutter sold his 25.6 million shares at some point between April and July this year. Those shares are said to have been sold for an average price of roughly $115 each, which makes Perlmutter’s sale worth something in the region of $2.9bn.
Already a multi-millionaire, Perlmutter first got involved with Marvel in 1993 when he joined the board of directors of its ailing comics division. The collapse of the wider Marvel Group in 1996 led to a legal scuffle between numerous men in suits, but Perlmutter and his business partner Avi Arad (they co-owned a company called Toy Biz) emerged as Marvel’s new bosses the following year.
Marvel Studios was founded in 1996 amid all this legal drama, and under the watch of Arad, its founder, began producing such films as Blade and X-Men. The movies’ success played a big part in turning the larger Marvel business, and Perlmutter became, among other job titles, CEO of Marvel Entertainment in the 2000s – a role he kept when Disney bought the company in 2009.
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As part of that $4bn deal, Perlmutter received almost $1.4bn in cash and Disney shares. Perlmutter also had a quiet sway over the creative direction of Marvel’s movies, at least until 2015, when Kevin Feige took over and Perlmutter was gradually shoved to one side. Perlmutter was eventually ousted from Marvel Entertainment altogether in 2023; Bob Iger had made his comeback as CEO, and there’d been months of drama over his and investor Nelson Peltz’s campaign to join Disney’s board of directors. Perlmutter had been keen to see both he and Nelson join the board – something Iger clearly wasn’t too happy about.
“Ike and Nelson were working together to try to […] convince the board to put Nelson on the board,” Iger said in 2023. “They have a relationship that dates back quite some time. We bought Marvel in 2009. I promised Ike the job that he would continue to run Marvel after that. Not forever, necessarily.”
Perlmutter has long cut a mysterious figure in the entertainment industry. Having never been interviewed by journalists, Perlmutter’s seldom been photographed in public – the makers of the Marvel Renaissance, a 2016 documentary about the company’s escape from financial calamity, once joked that he might not even exist.
Among the stories told about Perlmutter, there’s the one where he once stormed around the offices at Marvel, picking up paperclips and demanding to know why his employees were wasting money. He’s also said to have worn stage glasses and a fake moustache to blend in at the premiere of Iron Man in 2008. There’s the infamous claim that Perlmutter made a racist comment when actor Terrence Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle in 2010’s Iron Man 2.
The businessman reportedly told the Wall Street Journal that he’s sold his shares due to a lack of faith in Disney’s management. It’s the final chapter in Perlmutter’s involvement in Marvel and Disney’s story, then, at least for now; the hundreds of millions he’ll get from those shares will likely numb the pain somewhat.
